What It’s Like Doing Advent with the Seven Farmgirls

We have this book that we’ve done ever since the oldest of us was little…we practically have it memorized.

We also have memories from when we were little girls, like the ‘double doors’ were the coveted ones to open.

And WHY does it say that Mary made a bed of hay for baby Jesus because ‘it was soft to lie in’. We are farmgirls and happen to know straw is a LOT softer than hay!

And there are mice in almost every picture. Even Mary and Joseph’s wedding.

We also have to pick a way for everyone to have a turn opening the doors. Usually we go oldest to youngest, or vice versa, but this year Daddy came up with a new and very exciting way. Mommy calls it Advent Lottery 😀

For each day, Daddy picks a number between 1 and 100, then the rest of us who have not opened a door in the book will choose a number.

We also get terribly behind and do ten or twelve days at once to catch up. So tonight it got really lively.

Daddy: I have a number!

*Everyone shouts out their number*

Daddy: “Ninety!”

Jessica: Oh yes! YAY! I GET DOUBLE DOORS! *does a happy dance*

Cassia, Anna, several other sisters: ‘You are a double door HOGGER!’

*Mommy reads the words for that day*

Daddy: Okay, I have another number!

*Everyone shouts out their number*

Cassia: 55!Anna: 56!Cassia: Don’t pick one so close to mine!

Mommy starts reading about Mary putting baby Jesus in the manger:

“Just as Joseph was about to give up hope of finding anywhere, a kind innkeeper allowed them to use the place where he kept his animals. Inside it was warm and dry and the hay was soft…”

Several of us together interrupt: “Hay is NOT soft! Obviously the person who wrote this does not have a farm! Straw is better!”

Mommy: “I’m trying to read here!
‘The hay was soft to lie on…”

Jessica interrupts: “Timothy hay would be soft, but not alfalfa.”

Mommy: “Let me finish before you all start arguing about what kind of hay they used!”

Several ‘doors’ later is the coveted Wise Men In Their Golden Hut (with double doors!)

Jessica: “I want this one! It’s the best double doors you can get! What is that? Their golden shed?”

Mommy: “It’s a cabana!”

Someone asks: “What is a cabana?!”

Mommy: “You know, like people have on the beach, for a changing station.”

Someone says: “The Wise Men have funny bathing suits!”

Someone else: “They’re kings! They can have fancy swimming suits!”

And another: “I want the Wise Men’s bathing suit changing station!”

Daddy: “Fifty-five!”

Susannah falls out of her chair, kneels down and pumps the air: “YES! OH YES! I GET THE DOUBLE DOORS!!!!”

Everyone else hollers and groans “That is NOT fair!”

Daddy says: “I haven’t seen Susannah that excited for a LONG time!”

Mommy: “The sky was filled with millions of stars the night baby Jesus was born…”

Leah: “The sky was filled with millions of stars the night I was born, too!”

3 thoughts on “What It’s Like Doing Advent with the Seven Farmgirls”

this was seriously priceless.
Glad to know my family isn’t the only one LOL 😉
When we read the Bible as a family, our little “tradition” is, when whoever is reading the passage that night gets to the very end, we all try to say the last word with them 🙂 (this can make for a good laugh when more than one verse ends the same way or someone isn’t paying attention and tries to ‘end together’ with the reader B4 they’re actually finished lol 😀 )
It was fun reading about yours!!! Love how y’all get so hyped up over it lol

It was like Christmas this morning seeing all of the notifications that we had comments from you on our blog, hehe! I/we enjoyed reading each of them!

LOL! Your family sounds like ours, hehe! We have another ‘family tradition’ whenever Mommy is playing and singing the hymn ‘Saved’, when she finishes it’s a contest to see who can yell/shout AMEN first 😀 😀 😀